Two corporates were regular competitors in an annual boat race. A victory in this race mattered a lot to both companies, and the employees and managers expend tremendous efforts and emotions in preparing for this prestigious event. Team ‘A’ had 6 people rowing with one Manager while Team ‘B’ had two rowers who were supervised by 7 Managers.

For the fourth year in a row, the race was won by Team ‘A’, and this caused considerable consternation in the company that Team ‘B’ represented. The Board of Directors decided to form a committee that included the 7 managers, to probe this poor performance by Team ‘B’, as also to come up with suggestions for improvement. The committee deliberated for over 3 weeks, and came out with a simple, one-line recommendation: “The rowers of Team ‘B’ need to row harder.”

Over the last few weeks, we have had many articles written by senior government officials, senior representatives from NASSCOM and senior managers from major IT Services companies in India.

While acknowledging that there has been a slowdown in the industry revenues, the general message is that there is no need to panic, everything will be OK soon.